A New Power in the Streets

The fracturing of the Western alliance over Iraq and the huge antiwar demonstrations around the world this weekend are reminders that there may still be two superpowers on the planet: the United States and world public opinion.
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A Season of Stupidity
by Molly Ivins

The news is not good. Osama bin Laden wants us to invade Iraq. We're at orange on the alert code. The economy is tanking. We're spending $1.08 billion a day on the military.
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One Man Against the World
by Uri Avnery

The German people, which gave him power and followed him with closed eyes even when he committed heinous crimes, paid a heavy price. It has learned the lesson. Now it abhors war, any war, from the depth of its soul. Hundreds of thousands - young people, children, grandchildren and grand-grandchildren of that generation - march these days through the streets of Germany to protest against Bush's war. Their leader, Schroeder, was reelected solely because he expressed this deep longing for peace. The most warlike people has turned into the most anti-warlike.

That's great, isn't it? Not at all! American and British leaders condemn Germany for its refusal to go to war. The Israeli government heap scorn on its head. Wet rugs, these Germans! Damn pacifists! Cowards! Pitiful people who refuse to fight!

All this less than 60 years since Hitler's suicide. Who would have believed./font>
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Strategic Advice From the Public
by Bob Herbert

Walt Rostow, one of the ultimate hawks on Vietnam, died last week. He, along with many others, suffered from an optimism about the use of U.S. military force in that conflict that bordered on delusion. In an obituary Saturday, The Times's Todd Purdum quoted Nicholas deB. Katzenbach, an under secretary of state and attorney general in the Johnson administration, who had argued with Mr. Rostow over the efficacy of U.S. bombing.

"I finally understand the difference between Walt and me," said Mr. Katzenbach. "I was the navigator who was shot down and spent two years in a German prison camp, and Walt was the guy picking my targets."

President Bush and his hawkish advisers speak blithely about a U.S.-led invasion leading to a garden of democracy blooming in the desert soil of Iraq. I wouldn't reach for my gardening tools too quickly. What the administration has been unwilling to tell the public is the truth about some of the implications of war with Iraq — first and foremost, the bloody horror of men, women and children being blown to smithereens in the interest of peace, and then the myriad costs and dangers associated with a long-term U.S. military occupation.

As late as last week the administration tried to give the impression that the U.S. could be in and out of Iraq in as little as two years. That's a case of optimism as dangerous as Walt Rostow's.
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The US: A Nation Divided, With No Bridges Left to Build
In Austin, Texas, Robert Fisk sees at first hand the vast gulf between the pro- and anti-war movements in the United States

The show was over, recorded for one of those nice liberal local American TV cable channels – this time in Texas – where everyone agrees that war is wrong, that George Bush is in the hands of right-wing Christian fundamentalists and pro-Israeli neo- conservatives.

Don Darling, the TV host, had just turned to thank me for my long and flu-laden contribution. Then it happened. Cameraman number two came striding towards us through the studio lights. "I want to thank you, sir, for reminding us that the British had a lot to do with the chaos in the Middle East, " he said. "But I have something else to say."

His voice rose 10 decibels, his bare arms bouncing up and down at his sides, his shaven head struck forward pugnaciously. "Yeah, I wanna tell you that the cause of this problem is the fucking medieval Arabs and their wish to enslave us all – and I tell you that it is because we want to save the Jews from the fucking savage Arabs who want to throw them into the sea that we are about to fuck Saddam." There was a pause as Don Darling looked at the man, aghast. "And that," cameraman number two concluded, "is the fucking truth."
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